The invention is in the field of novelty items and their manufacture, particularly items such as artificial pumpkins that the consumer desires to carve or alter after purchase.
Known artificial novelty articles such as Halloween jack-o-lanterns are typically manufactured from paper products, ceramics, or thin, soft plastic and, while useful for display, are not suitable for carving by the purchaser or safe for use with lights. To honor the holiday tradition of carving pumpkins, therefore, members of the public have before now been forced to purchase real pumpkins. However, real pumpkins are perishable and therefore will rot after a time. They are messy and smelly to carve. They cannot be reused in subsequent years. There is a need, therefore, for novel application of known materials to articles that can be carved, such as artificial pumpkins that are durable, non-flammable, and carvable.
In addition, use of polyurethane foam has been limited to applications in which it can be sprayed on a planar, or nearly planar surface, such as roofing, or used in liquid form for injection molding into solid structures. However, there has before now been no known way of applying polyurethane foam to create a three-dimensional hollow structure.